Tony Stewart delays return to 24 Hours of Daytona

Speedweeks - NASCAR beat

January 23, 2009|By Steven Cole Smith, Sentinel Staff Writer

When the Rolex 24 at Daytona takes the green flag Saturday afternoon, one of the race's biggest supporters will be watching on TV.

Two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champ Tony Stewart's team nearly won the 24 Hours in 2004. They were leading when the rear suspension broke, and the team's efforts to repair it -- with a wooden 2x4, of all things -- failed with just 25 minutes to go, sending Stewart into the wall.

The following year, with two hours to go, Stewart's team was running at the top when the gearbox broke. After that race, Stewart said, "I'll keep coming back until I win."

He planned to return this year, but serving as his own new owner got in the way.

"I'm coming back, but this year just wasn't the right year to try and do it," Stewart said on the NASCAR media tour in Charlotte this week.

Busch's roots

Stewart's former teammate, Kyle Busch, who still drives for Joe Gibbs, is actively racing on short tracks whenever he can. But during Daytona Speedweeks, he's disappointed that he won't be racing at New Smyrna Speedway's 43rd annual World Series of Asphalt Stock Car racing Feb. 6-14 due to sponsor commitments.

"I might go over and watch a few nights," Busch said. "But they won't let me race. I really want to run the Pete Orr Memorial," a 100-lap race named for the late local racer who mentored many stock car drivers.

"But it's the night before the Daytona 500, and there's no way I can. If they moved it to, say, the Wednesday night before I might be able to do it, but I can't this year."

Busch, who came up through the short-track ranks at bullrings near his Las Vegas home, has said repeatedly he races at short tracks now to try to give back to the grass-roots sport that made him what he is.

Why don't more NASCAR stars do that?

"Because they're lazy," Busch said. "They don't want to spend the money, but mostly they just get lazy. Some drivers may have too much going on. I mean, guys like Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, their plates are full.

"But guys like my brother Kurt [Busch], or Ryan Newman, or Greg Biffle. Biffle made his name in the Winter Heat series at the short track in Tucson, but I don't see him going back to many short tracks. That would be a good question to ask those guys."

Close to home

Alan Gustafson, crew chief for Sprint Cup driver Mark Martin's full-time return to the series, says he will be glad to get to Daytona.

Martin lives at Spruce Creek, the airport fly-in just south of Daytona, Daytona Beach native Gustafson said, "and my family lives about 15 minutes from him."

Martin, stunningly fit at 50, already has had a positive impact on team owner Rick Hendrick. With Martin's urging, Hendrick has lost 20 pounds, and has 20 more to go.